CLEVELAND, Ohio – Cuyahoga County officials are
abandoning six months worth of plans to spend $500,000 to explore
unifying the county's disparate court case management systems in light of
unified opposition from top judges from all four
county courts.

In a Feb. 24 letter to County Council, Judges John
J. Russo, Diane M. Palos, Kristin W. Sweeney and Anthony J. Russo,
representing the county's General Division, Domestic Relations, Juvenile
and Probate courts respectively, said the $500,000
is an unnecessary taxpayer expense. They also said the process would
burden the courts with hundreds of hours of unneeded work and is
unlikely in the end to result in cost savings.

Even if council moved forward with the expense of
pursuing a "request for proposals," the letter suggests the courts may
not go along with adopting the new computer system, the judges wrote.
Mary J. Boyle, administrative and presiding judge
for the Ohio 8th District state appeals court also wrote a letter
expressing opposition.

So, the county instead will pursue a "request for
information" – which costs nothing, but which also won't provide as
detailed information, Jeff Mowry, the county's chief information
officer, said during a meeting of county council's
public safety meeting last week.

"We could have made better decisions with the RFP. But now with the letter, I agree we should do the RFI," Mowry said.

The
lack of compatibility between the county's computer systems
for the courts, the prosecutor's office and other county offices in the
criminal justice system has been a long-standing issue. A consultant's
report issued earlier
this year found the lack of compatibility between the prosecutor's
offices and the courts' computer systems has resulted in a "significant
duplication of effort."

However,
the judges said that their systems and the one the prosecutor's office
uses could be interfaced relatively inexpensively, if needed.

Councilman Mike Gallagher, who had been working
with Mowry to try to develop a uniform case management system, said he
was "taken aback" by the judges' opposition. He said the current setup,
in which each court and the prosecutor's office
all have their own case-management system, is inefficient and costly.

"But that's what we've found since we've been in
office. When dealing with the courts, you can't always expect them to be
professional," Gallagher, an outspoken critic who has clashed with
the courts in the past, told Northeast Ohio Media Group.

Information on how much the county spends on its
case management systems was not immediately available. Mowry and Rich
Luchette, a spokesman for County Executive Ed FitzGerald, did not return
several messages on Thursday and Friday seeking
information for this story.

Councilwoman Sunny Simon was more conciliatory, saying the issue is not "black and white."

"So to define this as an 'us versus them and them
versus us, and we're right and they're wrong,' I don't think is really
helpful or realistic, because everyone has their perception of what's
right for them," she said.

According to John J. Russo, the administrative and
presiding judge of the court's General Division, Gallagher pursued the
issue without first talking to any of the judges and in doing so has
publicly badmouthed them without listening to their legitimate concerns.

Russo said that though the council does control the
budgeting process, Gallagher seemed to forget that the courts have
separate responsibilities and actually answer to the state.

The judges said, conservatively, it could cost up
to $15 million to replace systems the county has already invested
millions building over the years.

Currently, each court has a separate case management
system, though all but the Juvenile Court's was created and is
maintained through contracts with a company call Proware, which has had
contracts with county courts for decades.

Russo and other judges also said building a new
unique system for all the courts to use would require hiring a stable of
full-time information technology employees to respond to the
requests Proware handles now as part of its contracts.

The judges also said that off-the-shelf systems
don't work for the unique needs of courts, which are constantly changing
with when new laws or Ohio Supreme Court rules are passed or forms are
amended.

Palos, the administrative judge for the Domestic
Relations Court, said that it would be a monumental task that would
paralyze the courts to transfer over all the information in current
software systems. Domestic Relations court magistrates
and judges, she said, retain every filing and memo and journal entry in
their current system.

She said Proware is constantly tailoring the system for her courts needs without up charging.

The system, she said, "isn't broken."

A study commissioned by Cuyahoga County Prosecutor
Timothy J. McGinty last year suggested linking a case management system
used by his office with the one used by the courts.

The courts in the past had opposed that because the
company that created that system before McGinty took office had been
linked with a federal probe into county government corruption.

But they are open to finding a way for the information in the systems to be connected.

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